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Manuals
and Guides: Community
Community
Building in Public Housing
Ties That Bind People and Their Communities
April 1997
Prepared by:
Arthur J. Naparstek
Dennis Dooley
Robin Smith
The Urban Institute/Aspen Systems Corporation
Prepared
for:
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of Public and Indian Housing
Office of Public Housing Investments
Office of Urban Revitalization
Manual
Index
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I.
Community Building: Emerging as a Key Strategy for the 21st Century
What
Is Community Building?
Principles of Community Building
Why the Community-Building Trend Is Emerging Now
II.
Community-Building Steps for Public Housing Authorities
Preparing a Mission Statement
Naming a Community-Building Facilitator
Creating a Representative Community Organization
Assuring that Management Is Connected and Responsive to Residents
Modifying the Physical Setting
III.
Community-Building Strategies: Some Examples
Engaging in Community
Setting Community Standards
Increasing Access to Opportunities
IV.
Community Building Through Partnerships: Some Examples
Building
Bridges to Resources and Real Opportunities
Addressing Health Problems
Combating Substance Abuse
Helping Families Acquire Survival Skills
Addressing Teens' Physical and Emotional Health
Helping Residents Acquire Education and Skills to Succeed
Opening a Wide Range of Opportunities
V.
Conclusion
Endnotes
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Foreword
I am pleased
to present this new report on community building-an important
new approach to combating poverty. Community building shares its
basic principles with several recent policy initiatives, including
Consolidated Planning, Empowerment Zones, Enterprise Communities,
and HOPE VI. These initiatives demonstrate the real progress that
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is
making toward reinventing itself and helping American communities
move forward.
Community
building, like these initiatives, involves residents in setting
goals and shaping strategies to achieve them. Community building
starts not with deficit or problem-oriented thinking, but with
identifying the unique set of assets that a particular area possesses.
It then uses these underutilized assets- educational institutions,
churches, proximity to downtown, historical significance, vacant
buildings, and, especially, the energy and aspirations of the
residents themselves-as the basis of the economic strengths of
the region as a whole.
Community
building requires a holistic approach. It tackles family and health
problems, education and labor force development, economic investment,
and affordable housing-all of the interconnecting issues that
people in poverty must deal with in order to make progress toward
economic independence. Community building encourages the formation
of creative partnerships that draw in resources from areas beyond
the immediate poverty neighborhood. These relationships and resources
are then available to help solve additional problems. This mutually
reinforcing process helps individuals and strengthens neighborhoods.
Community building is values oriented. This is one of its great
sources of strength. It works in a manner that reinforces community
values, strengthens families, and fosters citizenship and service.
This handbook on community building is written for public housing
managers and all individuals and organizations concerned with
the physical and social revitalization of American communities.
The growing use of community-building principles will complement
HUD's efforts to empower local areas so that every neighborhood
may become a community of opportunity.
Andrew Cuomo
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Preface
A real transformation
is taking place in public housing today. In cities all around
the country, a determined effort is underway to confront the problems
of our most distressed public housing through the 1993 Urban Revitalization
Demonstration Act, also known as HOPE VI. This legislation represents
the first fresh look at public housing in decades. The principles
guiding the legislation evolved from the 1992 Commission on Distressed
Housing and the 1992 Cleveland Foundation Commission on Poverty.
Both reports made a break with traditional, topdown approaches
to combating poverty. As a result, the US Department of Housing
and Urban Development, Public Housing Authorities, residents,
and local community leaders are coming together to challenge the
traditional purpose of public housing and its relationship to
the families it is supposed to serve. For the first time since
public housing was originally built, partnerships are being formed
to combat unemployment, ill health, substance abuse, and crime
in the most distressed communities in the Nation. And, thanks
to legislative and regulatory reforms, families receiving the
benefits of housing assistance can live in mixed-income neighborhoods
where market principles of management and maintenance prevail
and role models of success are abundant.
Yet, if
these encouraging changes are actually to bring about the lasting
transformation in these communities that everyone intends, neither
ambitious construction efforts nor top-down policy changes will
be enough. Rather, sustainable success will be made possible by
strengthening communities and harnessing the determination of
the residents of public housing-key resources that many observers
do not even figure into the equation of change.
Building
new and vibrant communities from the most distressed public housing
projects takes more than merely tearing down old, dilapidated
buildings and replacing them with new structures. The efforts
undertaken with HOPE VI funds are about building community. This
book sets forth an approach to fighting poverty that focuses on
residents and communities. This approach is central to HOPE VI,
whose initial legislation set aside up to 20 percent of each grant
for the implementation of supportive and community service programs.
The HOPE VI experience is heightening our appreciation of how
community building can restore energy and hope, and move people
toward independent and productive lives.
Community
building is a holistic approach that focuses its efforts on people.
It is predicated on the idea that residents must take control
of their destiny and the destiny of their communities. It is built
on efforts to help residents take on new responsibilities, make
new connections with the larger community, get and retain jobs,
start their own profitable businesses, and even own their own
homes.
Community
building grows from a vision of how communities function normally:
Community members create community institutions, from scout troops
to neighborhood museums, that help them achieve their aspirations
and at the same time strengthen community fabric and nurture other
community members. In many public housing neighborhoods, however,
the historic pressures of urban decay have all but stymied these
positive social processes. In these areas community-building efforts
develop leadership and link residents to the resources that can
get this dynamic of transformation operating again. The spirit
of community building seeks to involve everyone and to leave no
one behind.
This book
explains the community-building approach and supplies a wealth
of examples of how it is already paying dividends in many cities.
It gives step-by-step guidance that housing managers can follow
to work more closely with residents and become involved in the
exciting possibilities of community building. We hope that it
will help managers of public housing, residents, and their many
local partners bring real transformation to their communities.
Arthur J.
Naparstek, Ph.D. Senior Associate, The Urban Institute
Grace Longwell
Coyle Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
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Acknowledgments
In order
to produce this report, the authors built community with many
people. Kevin Marchman, Acting Assistant Secretary for Public
and Indian Housing, and Christopher Hornig, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Public Housing Investments of the US Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD), actively supported the project. Milan
Ozdinec, Director of HUD's Office of Urban Revitalization, was
extremely helpful in critiquing the manuscript. These three HUD
officials working together, with their belief in community building
as a guiding principle of HOPE VI, have enabled HOPE VI to grow
and flourish.
Senator Barbara
Mikulski, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for
the Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development, and
Independent Agencies, the principle sponsor of HOPE VI, has greatly
furthered the processes described in this report with her understanding
of and commitment to community building. The authors also want
to thank Congressman Louis Stokes, former Chair of the Appropriations
Subcommittee for the Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban
Development, and Independent Agencies, who has been a long-term
champion of public housing with great commitment to reversing
the conditions confronting poor people.
We also want
to thank Thomas Kingsley and Kathy Morton of The Urban Institute;
Henry Izumizaki of the Urban Strategies Council; Ron Register
of the Cleveland Community Building Initiative; Paul Brophy of
Paul Brophy and Associates; Sunia Zaterman and Orysia Stanchak
of the Housing Research Foundation; Claire Freeman, Chief Executive
Officer, and Ronnie Davis, Chief Operating Officer, of the Cuyahoga
Metropolitan Housing Authority; and Virginia Spencer, Christine
Siksa, Howard Lewis, Michael Siewert, and Susan Freis of Aspen
Systems Corporation. We are also indebted to the many neighborhoods
engaged in community building all around the country for sharing
their experiences.
Back
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Introduction
In order to
accomplish their public mission in an era of diminishing resources,
public housing managers are increasingly turning to strategies that
incorporate a community-building approach. This report explains
what community building is, why it makes sense for today, and how
public housing authorities can implement it. It also provides an
update on dozens of community-building initiatives in public housing
communities around the country.
Declining
Federal housing subsidies and the advent of welfare reform are
bringing dramatic changes to the funding environment for public
housing. As traditional sources of revenue diminish, public housing
managers are reexamining a previously little-used resource: the
energy and efforts of residents of public housing themselves.
They are discovering that strengthening the public housing community
can build a supportive social environment that can fulfill important
community needs and help individual residents move toward independence.
Community
building is an approach to fighting poverty that operates by building
social and human capital. It is an asset-oriented, people-based
approach that supports people in poor neighborhoods as they rebuild
social structures and relationships that may have been weakened
by decades of outmigration, disinvestment, and isolation. Community
building encourages residents to take on leadership and responsibility
rather than be passive recipients of services. Residents and housing
authorities, often working through creative partnerships with
schools, nonprofit agencies, charitable foundations, local governments,
and other institutions, seek to reconnect isolated public housing
communities with the resources of the city and the region.
Through
community-building activities in public housing neighborhoods
around the country, residents are setting goals and moving toward
their realization. The specific activities of these initiatives
as described in this report may seem familiar: residents, for
example, learning how to use computers, monitoring the school
performance of neighborhood children, providing childcare so that
mothers can seek employment, banding together to combat crime,
starting their own profitable businesses, and taking advantage
of new homeownership options. However, the overall goal of strengthening
community is greater than any one project.
Part
I
The report
begins by explaining what community building is, how it works,
and the context out of which it has emerged. Given today's changing
policy environment and diminishing resources, public housing managers
are initiating new activities and reexamining existing ones with
the purpose of furthering two overall outcomes: helping people
out of poverty permanently and strengthening public housing communities
to create an environment supportive of lasting independence. Activities
that further these outcomes-whether part of long-existing programs
or growing out of new initiatives-have recently come to be grouped
under the name of community building.
Initiatives
that successfully help residents out of poverty permanently and
build an environment supportive of lasting independence originate
in many different programs. However, these efforts tend to share
certain principles of community-building activities in that they:
- Involve
residents in setting goals and strategies.
- Begin
with an awareness of assets, as well as problems, in the community.
- Work in
communities of manageable size.
- Tailor
unique strategies for each neighborhood.
- Maintain
a holistic view of service delivery.
- Reinforce
community values while building human and social capital.
- Develop
creative partnerships with institutions in the city.
Community
building is also an important part of strategies to achieve the
policy goals that a wide range of observers agree are essential
to transforming the public housing system to meet the exceptional
challenges of the coming years. One goal is to demolish the most
physically distressed public housing and rebuild with less dense,
appropriately designed, economically integrated developments that
will spur neighborhood renewal. A second goal is to correct chronic
management and operational deficiencies through actions such as
recovery partnerships, assumption of direct control, or supported
receiverships. A third goal is to infuse public housing with positive
incentives that both support residents' commitment to achieving
self-sufficiency and disrupt the negative social dynamic of chronic
dependency. A fourth goal is to impose reciprocal obligations
on tenants-that they work toward self-sufficiency, contribute
to the community, and respect the rule of law.
Although
these policy goals receive their fullest programmatic expression
in the flexibility and resources provided to HOPE VI sites, public
housing authorities around the country are initiating other programs
that encourage and support resident efforts to reinvest in their
own neighborhood and community.
The community-building
approach grows out of new understandings of the dynamics of urban
poverty and personal barriers to independence. The work of William
Julius Wilson and other urban researchers suggests that the roots
of chronic poverty lie in the deteriorated social structure-a
weakening of the grassroots network of churches, schools, businesses,
neighborhood centers, and families themselves-which nourishes
and supports the life of a community.
Through community-building
activities, housing authority management and residents are working
to reknit community ties to address neighborhood problems, mitigate
the isolation that handicaps many public housing residents, and
create a supportive environment for individual efforts to gain
independence.
Part
II
Part II of
this report explains the specific institutional steps that housing
agency management needs to undertake to launch and nurture community-building
activities. These include preparing a mission statement; naming
a community-building facilitator; creating a representative community
organization if one does not already exist; ensuring responsive,
quality management; and modifying the physical setting through
New Urbanism or defensible space criteria to encourage community
building.
Part
III
The report
then presents examples of effective strategies for community building,
with a wealth of programs currently operating in public housing
and other urban neighborhoods. This section describes the programs,
links them to community-building principles, and presents key
lessons learned from these experiences. Programs are grouped in
terms of the basic community functions they seek to restore: (1)
engagement in the life and governance of the community, (2) setting
community standards, and (3) increasing access to opportunities.
Engagement in the Life and Governance of the Community
One set of
examples shows community-building initiatives that involve residents
in decisionmaking in matters such as physical plant, maintenance,
and services, that affect their lives and the prospects of the
community. Another set of strategies portrays community service
programs through which residents can invest in the future of their
neighborhoods while learning employable skills. These examples
also show how- residents can become actively involved in the governance
of their community- setting its priorities and goals, helping
to design the strategies that will achieve those goals, and overseeing
their implementation.
Setting Community Standards
The ability
to set norms and standards of acceptable behavior is regarded
as a basic function of community everywhere. With the help of
the 1996 "One Strike and You're Out" guidelines, residents are
taking part in evicting those persons who engage in illegal drug
or other criminal activity. In other initiatives, residents are
patrolling neighborhoods, or signing on to resident-created "covenants"
of behavior. In still other areas, residents are working to strengthen
families as a core community value. Gaining Access to Opportunities
These initiatives
illustrate promising job-linkage strategies, education/ training
programs, mixed-income developments, and programs offering various
housing options (including creative homeownership programs). The
goals of these efforts are to help public housing residents gain
access to opportunities for both self-sufficiency and better housing.
Part IV
Part IV provides
examples of community-building partnerships with agencies as diverse
as community foundations, churches, trade unions, business associations,
universities and community colleges, and national community service
programs. Part V
The report
concludes by affirming the importance of community building in
public housing and in the lives of its residents. In the present
context of welfare reform and the physical transformation currently
underway in America's many public housing neighborhoods, community
building not only becomes a critical strategy for the maintenance
of social stability and the reduction of crime, joblessness, and
other problems in public housing developments, but also seems
to be the key to helping residents achieve sustainable independence.
Manual
Index
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I.
Community Building: Emerging as a Key Strategy for the 21st Century
What
Is Community Building?
Principles of Community Building
Why the Community-Building Trend Is Emerging Now
II.
Community-Building Steps for Public Housing Authorities
Preparing a Mission Statement
Naming a Community-Building Facilitator
Creating a Representative Community Organization
Assuring that Management Is Connected and Responsive to Residents
Modifying the Physical Setting
III.
Community-Building Strategies: Some Examples
Engaging in Community
Setting Community Standards
Increasing Access to Opportunities
IV.
Community Building Through Partnerships: Some Examples
Building
Bridges to Resources and Real Opportunities
Addressing Health Problems
Combating Substance Abuse
Helping Families Acquire Survival Skills
Addressing Teens' Physical and Emotional Health
Helping Residents Acquire Education and Skills to Succeed
Opening a Wide Range of Opportunities
V.
Conclusion
Endnotes
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